ANALYSIS

Narrative of the Afghan Surge Takes Shape

Two assumptions will be tested: That this insurgency can be defeated; that Obama has political will to see war through.

By James Kitfield

+

ZHARI DISTRICT, AFGHANISTAN - OCTOBER 12: (FRANCE OUT) Lt. John Paszterko of Los Angeles, California with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division talks with a local farmer while on patrol October 12, 2010 in Zhari district west of Kandahar, Afghanistan. The 1st Battalion, 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne, the storied 'Black Hearts' that won fame on D-Day and in other battles, are currently spread out in the Taliban-infused badlands west of Kandahar, attempting to sway the hearts and minds of the local populace even as Taliban militants continue their attacks in the restive area. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)(Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

With President Obama consulting top military commanders in anticipation of a major announcement next week on troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, the military narrative of the “Afghan surge” is taking shape. Senior U.S. military and defense officials argue that since it was announced at West Point in December of 2009, the “surge” of 30,000 additional U.S. troops has accomplished two of its primary goals: wresting the strategic southern footholds of Helmand and Kandahar provinces from Taliban insurgents, and putting Afghan security forces on a path to assuming the lead in all combat operations in the country by the end of 2014.

The argument by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Afghan war commander Gen. David Petraeus that precipitous troop withdrawals will put those gains at risk, coupled with President Obama’s “err on the side of caution” approach to Afghanistan at virtually every strategic inflection point of his presidency, strongly suggest that next week’s announcement will call for a relatively modest and gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces in the coming year of somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 troops.

“Sometime next week President Obama will announce the beginning of the drawdown of the 'West Point surge,' and General Petraeus is back in Washington working with Defense Secretary Gates and [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs] Admiral Michael Mullen, and over the next few days they will meet with the president to discuss what the drawdown slope should be,” said Maj. Gen. Frederick Hodges, head of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell on the Joint Staff, speaking this week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Some in Washington have called for a withdrawal of 15,000 U.S. troops by the end of 2011, while Secretary Gates has said the number should be more modest. I suspect the final number will be somewhere in that ballpark. Everyone is in agreement that we don’t want to put the gains of the past year-and-a-half at risk.”

U.S. military leaders are confident the Taliban will fail to re-establish control of Helmand and Kandahar this fighting season. When they were driven out of those strongholds in 2010, the insurgents lost much of their logistical infrastructure in the region, including more than 50 bomb-making factories and hundreds of weapons caches. Perhaps most importantly, senior military sources claim the local populace has turned decidedly against the insurgents and, free of their intimidation, has given allied forces intelligence tips that led to the destruction of much of their logistical infrastructure. The Taliban has retaliated with a campaign of assassinations of politicians and police forces, and bomb attacks on soft civilian targets, but U.S. officials don’t believe they will regain a foothold in the south.

They also claim significant progress has been made in creating Afghan National Security Forces that will be able to transition to operational lead by 2014. Since December 2009, the alliance has increased the size of the ANSF by 100,000 soldiers and police, bringing the total to roughly 300,000, with an ultimate goal of 352,000 by October 2012. NATO’s Afghan training mission has also begun putting in place the recruiting, training, and support infrastructure that will make that force sustainable over time, though it will still require NATO “enablers” such as training, intelligence, communications, and logistics support beyond 2014.

“We test and assess every Afghan security unit we create using various metrics, and I can tell you the combat readiness of Afghan security forces is the best we’ve ever seen,” said Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, commander of NATO’s Afghan training mission, speaking recently at the Brookings Institution. Not only did Afghanistan contribute roughly 50 percent of the security forces that cleared Helmand and Kandahar last year, he said, but U.S. commanders recently identified the first of 84 Afghan infantry battalions as being able to operate independently. “I look at reams of data on their progress, and if the international community stays committed to this then I am absolutely convinced that Afghan Security Forces will be ready to take the lead by the end of 2014.”

Caldwell has also fought two persistent problems since 2009: a 70 percent attrition rate and a 90 percent illiteracy rate among recruits. Today, the Afghan army’s attrition rate has dropped to 30 percent (and is trending downward). Each recruit receives two hours of daily instruction in reading, writing, and math.

Yet from the beginning the Afghan counterinsurgency strategy faced two potential show stoppers, neither of which has been overcome during the “surge”: the need for a marked improvement of the ability of the central government in Kabul to deliver services and win the populace to its side, and denial of insurgent sanctuaries across the eastern border in Pakistan.